Archive Home Page Subj: Re:some practical matters 94-09-30 18:47:16 EDT
From: Joe Uhrig
>>When I visited a friend in suburban Virginia, his local paper carried a police blotter on the front page which detailed the arrest of two men for having sex in an illegally parked van, giving their names, addresses & places of employment. It doesn't take much imagination to suppose that petting in a parked van in a non-visible location wouldn't get a straight couple arrested.<<
I once did sensativity training for police recruits and your example was exactly the one I used to make a point about underlying issues that effect judgement. The only official concern over either situation SHOULD be that the necking (or whatever) often take place in remote places that unfortunately can be dangerous.
Police policies often reflect aspects of local culture and individual police have a wide range of discretion in these matters. Continued education and patient outreach is really the only solution here (occasionally protest can create pressure for official shifts but it that doesn't address the underlying issues).
It saddens me to hear that newspapers are still used as often devastating punishment for minor indiscretions. I remember a weatherman, when I lived in Sacramento, who was caught in a department store restroom and then killed himself. This normally supportive newspaper decided that his personal indiscretion was public news without of course even thinking about mentioning the underlying homophobia and shame that drove this man underground and then ultimately destroyed him (some men of course like public restrooms for the thrill, but most are very closeted and many don't consider themselves to be gay).
The publishing names of names is a conscious editorial decision. Of course our culture is so obsessed with vicarious revenge and symbolic punishment that newspapers probably realize that titilation of the sexually suppressed with the sexually 'guilty' probably helps sell papers.
The association of gays with sexual crimes, particularily against children, is of course the standard bearer of those carrying the cross of acute homophobia, and the general public just laps up overblown media accounts as a way of avoiding with their own deeply internalized feelings on the subject. The issues are very complex (about the only thing you can say for certain about abusers is that they were themselves in some way abused) and of course the tendency to ignore underlying truths in favor of finding scapegoats to dump blame on is as old as kicking the cat.